From my Kuro... YES! You can fix this, and after another 100 hours they have not increased. I have tweaked my panel to the point of a tiny red haze along the bottom but I will work on removing that properly when I have more time to play with the voltages.

My current settings for the PDP-LX5090 with 12,500 hours (enormous, I've had Panasonic PZ80s with less; I had a 46" for about a year with under 5k hours before upgrading, but was getting distracted by LCD-like black levels):

I did NOT adjust the YNOFSAD - you can fix red tint this way however it is rather unsatisfactory because you may see black rain before you adjust too far as in my case. And I did NOT reset any pulse or hour counters, doing so is very foolish IMHO!

The Kuro manual indicates the YKNOFSADs should be adjusted equally - however this is not a requirement and will not damage the panel or boards if they are adjusted individually. Adjusting individually gives you a lot more freedom. The panel on my TV is now so dark the bezel blends with the panel even with all lights out. You can put your eye to the panel and see the glow just about. I might be able to hit the milestone of zero MLL if I can deal with a slight magneta dead pixel problem - need to play around a little more with voltages. I did have essentially zero MLL at one point but too much problem with motion - dead pixels everywhere on scrolling scenes etc.

Anyone in the local area (Leeds) I can borrow/rent a light meter off I'd be interested. I'd like to see what my ANSI contrast can reach with more tweaks.

Very informative post! Your findings on each voltage pretty much match my experience from adjusting them for countless hours.

Very informative post! Your findings on each voltage pretty much match my experience from adjusting them for countless hours.

So you have not reset your display, correct?

No, I did not. But since I bought it used, I do not know if the previous owner did, however he did not seem like a techy guy and since he recently bought a 60" Samsung edge-lit LED TV to replace his faulty 9G Kuro (which cost me about £2.00 to fix ), I doubt he really cared about the red tint to blacks (since his Sammy had the horrible blue tint to blacks common to many LCDs.)

I've only had it for a month; when I first got it, I have to say, I was kind of disappointed, the Kuro was hardly darker than my PZ80, which in plasma terms is ancient! But tweaking it fixed all of that and gives me stunning PQ again.

As for repairing harm caused by reset... well, I do not know, but it causes the panel to get out of sync with the control board. In theory it should be possible to compensate for the ageing algorithm manually. Since the panel has passed the initial break in stage I think you should only need to try eliminate black rain, magenta sparkles, red tint etc.

I aged my panel for 215 hours with SUS at 178 and SAD at 158 (determined these values using the flowcharts in the service manual) and was artifact free in all internal patterns. Symptoms right after the reset were white sparkles in black, black screen looking like static noise, IR and black rain.

Over time, the white sparkles went away and black screen looked more uniform. At the 215 hour mark, I decided to adjust voltages and realized that I was not getting any black rain when reducing RSTP to 1, whereas fresh off the reset, I had black rain with RSTP at 18! I adjusted S1, S3 and S5 individually using the flowcharts and got to the point where my panel looked extremely close to stock!

IR had completely gone away, black rain gone, white sparkles gone, black screen still looked like static noise (though not as pronounced as before). My panel had accumulated 17000 pulses on 4 of the 5 pulse meters, remaining one is at 13000. I enjoyed it for a couple of hours and watched low APL scenes that looked like garbage before, and was amazed at the clarity and absence of IR.

Turned off the TV and called it a day. The next day, I check out the TV and its back to square 1! This leads me to believe that I'm against a never ending game of cat and mouse.

I aged my panel for 215 hours with SUS at 178 and SAD at 158 (determined these values using the flowcharts in the service manual) and was artifact free in all internal patterns. Symptoms right after the reset were white sparkles in black, black screen looking like static noise, IR and black rain.

Over time, the white sparkles went away and black screen looked more uniform. At the 215 hour mark, I decided to adjust voltages and realized that I was not getting any black rain when reducing RSTP to 1, whereas fresh off the reset, I had black rain with RSTP at 18! I adjusted S1, S3 and S5 individually using the flowcharts and got to the point where my panel looked extremely close to stock!

IR had completely gone away, black rain gone, white sparkles gone, black screen still looked like static noise (though not as pronounced as before). My panel had accumulated 17000 pulses on 4 of the 5 pulse meters, remaining one is at 13000. I enjoyed it for a couple of hours and watched low APL scenes that looked like garbage before, and was amazed at the clarity and absence of IR.

Turned off the TV and called it a day. The next day, I check out the TV and its back to square 1! This leads me to believe that I'm against a never ending game of cat and mouse.

What are your current voltages? How many hours before reset? My 12,500 hour panel has 600 billion pulse count approx, well used panel! (No burn in though.)

Do be aware that plasma panels are temperature sensitive - a low panel temperature will mean a higher MLL, if the algorithm is out of step, then it will possibly compensate too strongly or too weakly, causing issues for a fresh power up. 9G panels idle around 50 to 60 degrees C on normal program content which is considerably higher than other panels.

I have noticed that when you first turn on a 9G the panel MLL is very high, then a 15 seconds later it drops down. On my tweaked panel for the first two seconds there are some sparklies and it takes some time to "fill in" as such; however once it drops to the idle MLL the panel is perfect.

What are your current voltages? How many hours before reset? My 12,500 hour panel has 600 billion pulse count approx, well used panel! (No burn in though.)

Do be aware that plasma panels are temperature sensitive - a low panel temperature will mean a higher MLL, if the algorithm is out of step, then it will possibly compensate too strongly or too weakly, causing issues for a fresh power up. 9G panels idle around 50 to 60 degrees C on normal program content which is considerably higher than other panels.

I have noticed that when you first turn on a 9G the panel MLL is very high, then a 15 seconds later it drops down. On my tweaked panel for the first two seconds there are some sparklies and it takes some time to "fill in" as such; however once it drops to the idle MLL the panel is perfect.

I'd try lowering S1 to low levels, maybe mid 20s to 30s, increase S4 up to around 160 to 180. Lower VOL SUS, it's too high, you want around 160 maximum, or you are overdriving the panel and just throwing away power. Peg SAD back to 128 and don't touch that for future uses. Lower S1&S3 and increase S4 as required to keep black detail whilst taking away the red tint. They are very interactive so you do need to do a bit of back and forth. Then adjust OFFSET using service manual's dead pixel test. (I need to do that on my panel - since I got it, it's had two dead green subpixels on it giving it two magenta dots. Still haven't gotten around to it...) I'd try keeping OFFSET as high as required to get rid of dead pixels, AFAIK it doesn't affect MLL significantly so don't worry about that. Leave XPOFS at factory, I don't know what they do but can't seem to get much change out of the panel by tweaking them - only effect at very low values was magenta tint which is just an underdiffused plasma panel.

Since your panel is so new, and you're only ~1000 hours out of sync, I'd just run it in for some more hours watching it carefully. I think once the control board gets over the initial ageing process it should settle in well, but it might require some patience.

I'd try lowering S1 to low levels, maybe mid 20s to 30s, increase S4 up to around 160 to 180. Lower VOL SUS, it's too high, you want around 160 maximum, or you are overdriving the panel and just throwing away power. Peg SAD back to 128 and don't touch that for future uses. Lower S1&S3 and increase S4 as required to keep black detail whilst taking away the red tint. They are very interactive so you do need to do a bit of back and forth. Then adjust OFFSET using service manual's dead pixel test. (I need to do that on my panel - since I got it, it's had two dead green subpixels on it giving it two magenta dots. Still haven't gotten around to it...) I'd try keeping OFFSET as high as required to get rid of dead pixels, AFAIK it doesn't affect MLL significantly so don't worry about that. Leave XPOFS at factory, I don't know what they do but can't seem to get much change out of the panel by tweaking them - only effect at very low values was magenta tint which is just an underdiffused plasma panel.

Since your panel is so new, and you're only ~1000 hours out of sync, I'd just run it in for some more hours watching it carefully. I think once the control board gets over the initial ageing process it should settle in well, but it might require some patience.

How long is this initial aging process? I know most use hours to estimate this, but the service manual states that corrections are performed using the pulse meter as a reference. So we need to know the amount of pulses required to get past this initial aging process.

Funny you mention the offset dead pixel VOL OFFSET test because that is how I'm adjusting VOL SUS. I have a dead pixel on the green patter (raster 19) and the only way to remove it is to increase VOL SUS to 178 or decrease YSUSB from 128 to 126. Adjusting VOL OFFSET does nothing in this regard. What's weird is that, after reset, 158 was the VOL SUS value that would clear the dead pixel. After about 100 hours, a setting of 168 was needed to remove the stuck pixel. Now, at the 225 hour mark, a setting of 178 is needed. Another odd thing is that VOL OFFSET does remove the stuck pixel but only if VOL SUS is set around the 168 178 value.

I'm only 1000 hours out of sync, but have reset more than once along the way, so not sure if each subsequent reset makes things worse.

How long is this initial aging process? I know most use hours to estimate this, but the service manual states that corrections are performed using the pulse meter as a reference. So we need to know the amount of pulses required to get past this initial aging process.

Funny you mention the offset dead pixel VOL OFFSET test because that is how I'm adjusting VOL SUS. I have a dead pixel on the green patter (raster 19) and the only way to remove it is to increase VOL SUS to 178 or decrease YSUSB from 128 to 126. Adjusting VOL OFFSET does nothing in this regard. What's weird is that, after reset, 158 was the VOL SUS value that would clear the dead pixel. After about 100 hours, a setting of 168 was needed to remove the stuck pixel. Now, at the 225 hour mark, a setting of 178 is needed. Another odd thing is that VOL OFFSET does remove the stuck pixel but only if VOL SUS is set around the 168 178 value.

I'm only 1000 hours out of sync, but have reset more than once along the way, so not sure if each subsequent reset makes things worse.

I don't know how long the process is but from what I've seen of other TVs, about 1500~2000 hours in total, for example the Panasonic 13G rising blacks issue stops around 1,500 hours.

My dead pixels are green too, which probably isn't a coincidence since green on Kuros has the lowest CEL energy level, I suspect some dead pixels may be stubborn and not want to go without good force.

You may just have to wait it out and see how it goes - don't really have any other great suggestions I'm afraid. :/

When a plasma is reset - the phosphors have already aged far beyond what is an original set up of driving voltages in the initial setup at the factory which was required for a new module.

What must be done then is finding where these voltages are/were in a driving sense - now or just before reset. Which becomes obvious when no misfires are observed. Which in turn is actually/basically a new panel as far as the electronics are concerned - but thousands of hours on.

If Pioneer themselves were to reset all Pioneer Kuro plasmas in every owners possession as of from today. The numbers required would be vastly different from the numbers we all "see" when we put up the service menus.

Minus the red tint and whatever required tweak or tweaks to prevent that returning.

Various post reset calibrations have more or less proved that reset does not ruin the panel long term. On the contrary.

Hope all is well. I wanted to give an update. Since my last reset (it was a while ago noted somewhere in this thread) my 500M is just about back to where I remember it when I first bought it. I have to say that the blacks seem better than that first day but that's just my observation so take it with a grain if salt. The good news is zero red tint return and the black rain is just about nonexistent. I have to keep up a black screen for minutes before it will show on the menu. So all in all I'm very happy and hope to have this panel for years.

Hope all is well. I wanted to give an update. Since my last reset (it was a while ago noted somewhere in this thread) my 500M is just about back to where I remember it when I first bought it. I have to say that the blacks seem better than that first day but that's just my observation so take it with a grain if salt. The good news is zero red tint return and the black rain is just about nonexistent. I have to keep up a black screen for minutes before it will show on the menu. So all in all I'm very happy and hope to have this panel for years.

What is your post reset hour count?

Do you see any image retention when going into black?

Does an all black screen look uniform upon close inspection or do you see dancing pixels/blobs?

7 months ago I did reset my Kuro 8G: after 840 hours of use yesterday I used the probe to assess its condition.
I remember that on that occasion, after the reset, I performed no voltage change because I got a disappearance of Red Tint, a striking reduction of Nero (from 0.015 - 0.017 cd/m2 to 0.005 cd/m2!) and no artifact as Magenta Sparkles, Black Rain or Black Lag.

Precisely for this reason it was right to expect a return to previous conditions ... and so it was
Not so much for the Red Tint (which was not evident even before) as for Black level returned to previous levels.
This is screenshot related to the reading of Near Black + GrayScale Pre-Reset performed yesterday, before the "cure."
You can see the Black at 0.0159 cd/m2:

Given the good results of the previous Reset I decided to do it again, but in this case I decided to change, after Reset, the voltages to try to avoid returning to the starting point in the space of a few months.
This is the Near Black Post-Reset (5 minutes after the previous reading) without any change of voltages.
Black has become, after only Reset, 0.0077 cd/m2 (almost half!)

Finally, this is the result after some change in voltages - Near Black Post-Reset + Changed Voltages
Amazing Black: 0.0019 - 0.0020 cd/m2 (almost similar to the KRP!) + very linear Gamma.
Near Black too dark, but I think it will improve spontaneously with driven bedding by internal algorithms:

Final big question: will this condition remain stable over time? We will see in the next episodes ...

I've been playing with my PDP-LX5090 a bit more now. I was able to have zero black level (I mean you cannot see it at all in a pitch black room, eye right against panel) at V1F=001, V3F=001, V4F=085, VRP=001, but I was getting too much magenta pixels in fast motion... but on credit screens, I thought I might have accidentally bought an OLED!

ABL also set to 200 to increase average panel brightness. Panel in Energy Save Mode 2 with no buzzing now looks identical to no energy save with loud buzzing with default ABL=128, save for a very slight dither noise increase, but this is not noticeable at viewing distance. Increase ABL until PSU makes clicking sounds on full white pattern in Mode 2, then knock down 5 stops for some margin for low mains voltage. You can run with ABL=254 for authentic 800W room heater (and 35fL full field white/66fL peak white i.e. F8500 like look), but the PSU does NOT sound happy when you do this! So I would not recommend it!

Still some black glow but man, I have never seen such a nice panel black level (since I was used to old Panny PZ80 panels, etc.)

There is a very mild increase in IR - on title credits, you can sometimes see some brighter black level left behind, but it never appears on bright content and fades in 2~3 seconds to ambient black level. These panels don't normally get IR, due to how Pioneer drive them, so interestingly it's not really immunity from IR but more how Pioneer are more careful with how they drive the panel. They do not drive it any where near its limits, it has a lot more capability than they sell. This might explain somewhat why newer panels are far more prone to IR due to the lack of a CEL layer and conventional panel drive as manufacturers aim to minimise cost/maximise performance.

I have to keep V4F and V3F about 30 clicks apart to stop maldischarge occuring (yellow-orange tint everywhere or extreme MLL) unless V4F is around 128. Seems the more you increase V4F to try and reduce magenta sparklies, the more you start seeing maldischarge in black.

No red tint any more. Anyone have any tips for removing the magenta dead pixels and get even lower black level? These levels on my 12,650 hour 9G get me no sparklies on the scrolling mask pattern MKCS01. I see some on the rapid crosshatch pattern, but I saw them on a stock PZ80, I think most panels struggle from unrealistic patterns like that.

I've been playing with my PDP-LX5090 a bit more now. I was able to have zero black level (I mean you cannot see it at all in a pitch black room, eye right against panel) at V1F=001, V3F=001, V4F=085, VRP=001, but I was getting too much magenta pixels in fast motion... but on credit screens, I thought I might have accidentally bought an OLED!

ABL also set to 200 to increase average panel brightness. Panel in Energy Save Mode 2 with no buzzing now looks identical to no energy save with loud buzzing with default ABL=128, save for a very slight dither noise increase, but this is not noticeable at viewing distance. Increase ABL until PSU makes clicking sounds on full white pattern in Mode 2, then knock down 5 stops for some margin for low mains voltage. You can run with ABL=254 for authentic 800W room heater (and 35fL full field white/66fL peak white i.e. F8500 like look), but the PSU does NOT sound happy when you do this! So I would not recommend it!

Still some black glow but man, I have never seen such a nice panel black level (since I was used to old Panny PZ80 panels, etc.)

There is a very mild increase in IR - on title credits, you can sometimes see some brighter black level left behind, but it never appears on bright content and fades in 2~3 seconds to ambient black level. These panels don't normally get IR, due to how Pioneer drive them, so interestingly it's not really immunity from IR but more how Pioneer are more careful with how they drive the panel. They do not drive it any where near its limits, it has a lot more capability than they sell. This might explain somewhat why newer panels are far more prone to IR due to the lack of a CEL layer and conventional panel drive as manufacturers aim to minimise cost/maximise performance.

I have to keep V4F and V3F about 30 clicks apart to stop maldischarge occuring (yellow-orange tint everywhere or extreme MLL) unless V4F is around 128. Seems the more you increase V4F to try and reduce magenta sparklies, the more you start seeing maldischarge in black.

No red tint any more. Anyone have any tips for removing the magenta dead pixels and get even lower black level? These levels on my 12,650 hour 9G get me no sparklies on the scrolling mask pattern MKCS01. I see some on the rapid crosshatch pattern, but I saw them on a stock PZ80, I think most panels struggle from unrealistic patterns like that.

Don't think your posts go unnoticed. I for one think this is a very informative post.

I see the magenta pixels on the white outlines of the crosshatch pattern (combi mask 10 I believe) on my 141 and 151. I never see them on the 101, even with all voltages at minimum. The only way to remove these is to increase RSTP or S1, S3 and S4 (most likely S3). I never see them on content though.

7 months ago I did reset my Kuro 8G: after 840 hours of use yesterday I used the probe to assess its condition.
I remember that on that occasion, after the reset, I performed no voltage change because I got a disappearance of Red Tint, a striking reduction of Nero (from 0.015 - 0.017 cd/m2 to 0.005 cd/m2!) and no artifact as Magenta Sparkles, Black Rain or Black Lag.

Precisely for this reason it was right to expect a return to previous conditions ... and so it was
Not so much for the Red Tint (which was not evident even before) as for Black level returned to previous levels.
This is screenshot related to the reading of Near Black + GrayScale Pre-Reset performed yesterday, before the "cure."
You can see the Black at 0.0159 cd/m2:

Given the good results of the previous Reset I decided to do it again, but in this case I decided to change, after Reset, the voltages to try to avoid returning to the starting point in the space of a few months.
This is the Near Black Post-Reset (5 minutes after the previous reading) without any change of voltages.
Black has become, after only Reset, 0.0077 cd/m2 (almost half!)

Finally, this is the result after some change in voltages - Near Black Post-Reset + Changed Voltages
Amazing Black: 0.0019 - 0.0020 cd/m2 (almost similar to the KRP!) + very linear Gamma.
Near Black too dark, but I think it will improve spontaneously with driven bedding by internal algorithms:

Final big question: will this condition remain stable over time? We will see in the next episodes ...

Let me get this straight, you reset, left the voltages at default and black level increased after 800 hours of use. Did the red tint return too?

You reset again and black level dropped again.

After reset, you reduced voltages to see if black level returns?

To me, it seems like RSTP plays a part in rising black level and red tint. Lowering it after reset might be a good idea, though you might experience artifacts, including black rain/lag.

Interesting...
V1F has no effect on black level below about 080. (Above that, I get a red tint.) I set it up, and it removed a lot of dithering on low APL scenes.
I noticed that when watching last night's Doctor Who the set was black clipping. No detail in the shadows. I found increasing V1F removed this.
Also noticed low VOL OFFSET causes a stuck pixel in the top left corner of the panel. Which is the opposite of what I expected.

hi zimbalo, I have changed my voltages with ones you have used , i have done a full reset of my tv and the hours count is back down to zero , does the tv have to build up its voltages again to get the best picture again,i have noticed a few sparkles is this normal and does it settle down by it self. many thanks david

hi zimbalo,my were at factory settings,then pg ice has been helping me out,have had a lot of problems with my screen but now heading in the right direction,its along story but if would like to have a look on avf and look at the plasma setting my post is my foggy screen.today I did a full reset and used your settings.at the moment my hours about 5hrs.
movie mode
contrast 36
brightness +1
colour +4
tint 0
sharpness _15
film mode advance
enhance mode 3
gamma 1
colour space 2
colour temp
red high +1
green high 0
blue high +2
red low 0
green low 0
blue low+1
every thing else off.
hope this helps thanks david